Mistakes were made says Rosberg

It wouldn’t be right to look at the Red Bull team-orders fiasco in Malaysia without revisiting the similar situation at Mercedes.

Red Bull were not the only team to order their drivers to hold position and maintain the gap. But the difference between Red Bull and Mercedes was the Mercedes drivers actually obeyed the team-orders handed to them by their bosses.

Red Bull handed out their orders due to not wanting to race the tyres beyond their natural life at the end of the Grand Prix.

At Mercedes the concern was fuel and whether or not if their drivers raced whether either driver would actually make it to the end of the Grand Prix!

So while Sebastian Vettel ignored his team-order to not race Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg accepted the order not to over take Lewis Hamilton, although of course we know that the German did attempt to argue the point!

But there was no fall-out in the aftermath of the decision at Mercedes, team principal Ross Brawn has proven to his bosses and drivers that the decision was the right one.

But that doesn’t mean that there are not lessons to be learned and Rosberg has stated that Mercedes have done that.

‘We have discussed it and it is all sorted for the future which is important,’ he told Sky Sports.

‘The difficulty was that we hadn’t really discussed them before hand – that is the mistake that we made. So it is important going forward that everything is discussed and then whichever way it goes, if I’m in front and Lewis is behind and he respects that and vice-versa, then it is OK.

‘As long as we are prepared for it and it is discussed well and understood then that is the important thing and that is a mistake we made as a team.’

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